Word.ws English Dictionary

positive transfer

positive transfer noun: the successful use by a language learner of a construct from the learner's source language in the target language, such that the resulting utterance in the target language is correct.

Noun

positive transfer (usually uncountable, plural positive transfers)

  1. (usually) The successful use by a language learner of a construct from the learner's source language in the target language, such that the resulting utterance in the target language is correct.

Forms of positive transfer

pluralpositive transfers

Questions about positive transfer

What does positive transfer mean?
Positive transfer means the successful use by a language learner of a construct from the learner's source language in the target language, such that the resulting utterance in the target language is correct.
What part of speech is positive transfer?
Positive transfer is a noun.
What is the plural of positive transfer?
The plural of positive transfer is positive transfers.

Words near positive transfer in the dictionary

  1. positive side waterproofings
  2. positive split
  3. positive statement
  4. positive statements
  5. positive thinking
  6. positive transfer
  7. positive transfers
  8. positive transition
  9. positive zero
  10. positive zeroes
  11. positive zeros

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: positive transfer (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “positive transfer.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/positive_transfer. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.